Aaron McGruder Quotes

Comics are a dying art. If you ask a little kid to choose between a video game with insane graphics or comic books... you have to compete with cable, satellite TV with its thousands of channels, and with video games that are like movies, with CGI explosions where you can blow up worlds.

I don't read cartoons because I think for the most part the comics don't have an interest for me. There's just nothing there these days that makes me want to go seek them out. I'm not trying to say my work wouldn't have sparked that same reaction from somebody else. There's just nothing there for me personally.

I never really read comics. I bought them, and I would draw them.

I'm not opposed to comics on the Internet. It's just not interesting to me.

It used to be that comic strips were the big thing, and comic books were toilet paper.

I think that other people covering my work is really exciting... Im really open to that kind of thing because I think interpretation is an art form.

Movie is a near art form. It's showbiz and people want to make money. And generally people are financing things because they think it will make money whether it's a cable news show, a cable show, or a feature film, or whatever it is. So that's the part of it that drives it, I think, is really the dollar.

I think comics will always be around. I think there's something nice about a comic book. People love to hold 'em, turn the pages, fold 'em up, roll 'em up, stick 'em in their back pocket, show 'em to a friend, and say, "Hey, look at this."

The term comics long ago became obsolete and inaccurate. It merely defined the content of the early joke-based comical strips. Sequential Art is a more accurate description of the form. I first suggested it because I believed something needed to be done to correct the feeling of inferiority by artists and writers in this field.

I think comics overall would be better. I think there's a tremendous potential to be tapped.

I'd always wanted to tell people that when I work on my body I'm thinking about classical sculpture, so I jumped at the chance to show off body building as an art form.

Stand-up is an art but since it's humor and it's funny - a lot of guys that don't think it's art are probably coming from the angle that they don't want to take it so seriously. I've always looked at it as an art but I don't look at it as a pretentious art. I understand it has to be taken lightly because it is just comedy in the end, but the good stand-up comics are someone with something to say.

The art of pleasing is more based on the art of seeming pleased than people think of, and she disarmed the prejudices of her enemies by the unaffected delight she appeared to take in themselves.

I think its pretty clear that film is the pre-eminent art form of our age. If Michaelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today they’d be making Avatar, not painting a chapel. Film is incredibly democratic and accessible, it’s probably the best option if you actually want to change the world, not just re-decorate it.

The people who worked in comics were terrific guys. I had a good association with them, and I enjoyed comics for that very reason.

I started blogging because I didn't know if I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to talk to other people online who were doing art, so I would post work and ask for feedback. I loved that an artist like James Jean would show his process on his blog. It became this open dialogue that, unfortunately, we don't have a lot in the fine-art world. People will say, "Wow, you share a lot." I'm like, "No, I make it a point to." Instagram is a great place for people to share failure. I don't want people to think that being an artist is some glamorous life.

I think the term 'conceptual art' is a useful term for writers, a basket to put people in, like Pop Art or Impressionism or whatever.

I just think there's more paparazzi, there's more cable TV, there's millions of networks now, there's more paparazzi. People liked gossip then, and they like gossip now.

I have received no assurance that anything we can do will eradicate suffering. I think the best results are obtained by people who work quietly away at limited objectives, such as the abolition of the slave trade, or prison reform, or factory acts, or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice, or health, or peace. I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can.

People have always said since TV was invented what a cultural wasteland it is but I think it is the worst and the best. It is the golden age of television.

The sham engineers of the music industry, who steer the wheels of public opinion, are driving the good features of calypso into the ground. I shudder to think what these greedy men will eventually do to this true art form.

I really think people are greatly stimulated and enriched by experiencing in film just as we can from novels and other art, experiencing things that resonate with what our lives are about. I think people really want to know... want to share, want to have the stimulus to think and care about the way they live their lives, the way they relate to other people, their aspirations, their hopes, et cetera.

I think a lot of the bells and whistles that become available to you would be impossible to resist for some people, so it's just never going to be a real stand-in version of your comic. People will have to take advantage of the ability to have sound, or zoom in and out, whatever it is.

Some people are worried about the future of comics and some people are busy building it. That latter group are my heroes.

I have to go around and ask people for money, of course, quite a lot. And it's quite an art to ask people for money. But I think that I have to ask them for money for the things that I'm interested in, and of course, money breeds money.